China seeks to seal climate treaty by 2011

China wants the world to seal a binding climate change treaty by late 2011, a Chinese negotiator said in a newspaper on Friday, blaming the US politics for impeding talks and making a deal on global warming impossible this year.

Li Gao, a senior Chinese negotiator on climate change, said his government would remain unyielding on issues of "principle" in the talks aimed at forging a successor to the Kyoto Protocol. The first period of that treaty on fighting global warming expires at the end of 2012. Li also vowed to keep pressing rich countries to promise deeper cuts to carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from human activity that are stoking global warming, said the China Economic Times.

Experts have already dismissed hopes for a full climate change treaty at the next major negotiation meeting, to be held in Cancun, Mexico by end of 2010. "China hopes that based on the outcomes from Cancun, we'll be able to settle on a legally binding document at the meeting," Li said.